I close my eyes, knowing what she will say when she sees my bruises. She invites herself in without my answering her, grabbing the ointment. She twists it open as she approaches me. She gets on the bed as carefully as possible, which, of course, makes me hurt worse.
“Sorry.”
She gently removes the robe from my shoulders and emits an audible gasp at the dark-purplish bruising over half my body, the side Dana pummeled earlier that day.
“Bloody hell, Nena, how much more of this will you take?” Elin asks as she begins applying a thick slathering of ointment. The room fills with the smell of camphor. “You don’t have to do this. It’s been years, and you still get fucked up. Haven’t you had enough?”
“I like it.” I wince. “And I am nearly finished with my training.”
“You’re always hurt, bruised, cut, broken, or exhausted,” she fumes. “I hate this for you.” With nimble fingers, she kneads away knots of pain. I grit my teeth, my hands fisting into tight balls and digging into the duvet cover, to keep from crying aloud.
I hiss, “I’ll be okay.”
“Why can’t you stick to the business side with me? Run it with me?” She asks me this every time she nurses me. It has become our routine. “We would be unstoppable.”
“I don’t want to run anything.”
She pulls my robe over my shoulder and watches me inch into the bed, between the covers she has thankfully pulled down. When she tucks me in tightly enough I cannot escape, Elin lies beside me, her head touching mine. “What about a double date? Tomorrow.”
Her voice brightens when she says it, and I twist my head to gawk at her, then return to my more pressing matter of finding a comfortable position to sleep in beneath this cocoon she has wrapped me in.
“Ben has a friend who says you’re hot.” Ben is her flavor-of-the-month boyfriend. Her words, not mine.
“I am hot,” I mutter. “Would you mind turning down the heat when you leave?”
She wrinkles her nose. “Not that kind of hot, Literal Lucy. He finds you attractive. You need to shag, sis.”
“Never.”
“Never?” Her eyes are round as the saucers we use for tea. “You’ll never have sex?”
We have had this conversation as well. My sister believes I have had enough recovery time and should enter the world of the sexually active. “I have unwillingly had enough sex to last a lifetime. And I find it quite distasteful.”
“What about when you find love? I mean romantic love, not family kind of love.”
I sigh again. Elin will never understand how dead I feel inside when it comes to sex, my repulsion when men touch me in that way or any way. I cannot imagine ever wanting someone to touch me like that again. She won’t know the ruin I feel, the lack of desire. I have never known romance. Sex was used as a weapon against me. I want no more part of it. Even though she will never understand, I tell her how I feel. Then I open my eyes and look at her.
It is undeniable, the despair I see in Elin’s eyes as she gazes at me. I wish she would not. There is nothing to despair. It is what it is. Exhausted, all I want to do is sleep, but Elin has more talk in her.
“Nena,” she breathes, “when you came to us, you were this scrawny little thing. And in this short amount of time, you have become the most amazingly strong and bravest person I’ve ever met.”
I can no longer meet her gaze. If I do, I will break right in front of her. With great effort, I say, “Kindly thank Ben and decline the date with his friend for me.”
Elin huffs, annoyed with me, but only for a little while. I am not worried it will last. “Also, if you’re going to be on Dispatch, you’ve got to sound more human, more your age,” she says.
“Do I not sound human?” Her words are nonsensical. If I am human, how do I not sound so?
Elin touches her forehead as if dealing with a difficult child. “You sound robotic, Nena. You speak very properly, and I know you know multiple languages, and that’s wicked, but you sound stilted. You’re too tight, need to loosen up.” She begins convulsing, jiggling her body in an alarming manner. “See, like this. Loosen up. And you need to use slang and contractions and idioms. Shit like that, or you’ll stick out like a sore thumb, and your mark will make you.”
“My thumb is actually the one part of my body that’s not sore.”
“And maybe throw in some cursing too. Say bloody hell, or call someone a tool-ass wanker or fucking cesspot.”